Better to admit it. “I was just thinking the Evil Twin might ignite the gas tank.”
Walter watched Cacey and Drew for a few seconds more, then turned back to me without saying anything.
“You’re out,” I said.
“Of?”
“One-liners.”
“Oh!” he said. “I thought you meant I was out of the picture.”
“Thank goodness you’re back,” I said.
We laughed. Then his smile faded, and I felt mine disappearing too. We were talking about young love.
Weren’t we?
I looked back to Drew. He was kissing the twin.
A ck, Drew was kissing the Evil Twin!
He had his hand on her waist. Unh, that was supposed to be my waist! He used his other hand to brace himself on the truck, and he bent to kiss her, a long hot kiss.
Well, it couldn’t have been too hot a kiss, because she had the presence of mind to flick ash from her cigarette onto the driveway while it was going on.
I turned back to Walter. He was watching me.
Then I got an idea. It was the make-out porch. I could make out with Walter.
“Want to sit down?” I asked, nodding toward an empty—errr—love seat.
“Why not?” he asked.
I could think of a lot of reasons why not.
We sat close but not touching, and joked quietly about the other couples making out. We rated them each with an artistic and a technical score. We did not rate Drew and Cacey.
I offered Walter all kinds of hints, but he wouldn’t make a move on me. I sidled a little closer to him, so our knees touched, and gave him what I thought was a pointed look. I didn’t want to make the first move. He was still crushing on me, and it would be cruel to lead him on.
But if he made the move on me, I could be nice and just enjoy it while we were in public, and then explain that I wasn’t interested when we were alone. A fter I’d made my point to Drew.
The only problem with this plan was that Walter wouldn’t cooperate. He wouldn’t take the hint. Or he got the hint, but he was being stubborn for some reason.
I knocked my knee against his knee.
He looked down at our knees, but didn’t otherwise move.
I reached out and touched his hand with one finger.
This time he looked up at me, and I knew for sure he was being stubborn. He was too smart for this. There was a reason he’d gotten into the State School for Fine A rts.
We stared at each other, and the air was electric between us.
My cell phone rang.
A s I half-stood to pull it out of my pocket, I saw that Drew had turned toward me, with his arm still braced on the truck, very close to Cacey.
A llison was calling to tell me she’d gotten home okay. When I clicked the phone off, Walter asked, “A re you ready to go?”
I thought he knew I was crushing on Drew, and he knew I was only here to see Drew, and he knew he wasn’t helping me give Drew the proper show. But I couldn’t be sure.
Drew kissed Cacey’s neck.
“Yes,” I said.
I drove Walter across town. Neither of us said anything for the whole ride, which was probably the first time that had ever happened between us. Last year we couldn’t even shut up when we were supposed to be standing at attention on the football field in the drum line.
I pulled my car into the campground and stopped at the door of the bus. His mothers car wasn’t there, of course. The lights were off in the nearby trailers.
I was half-hoping he would jump out and go inside before I even turned off the motor, but I knew he wouldn’t. Something was going to happen. I turned off the motor.
We sat there in the quiet dark. I stared straight ahead at the bus. In the years since Walter had painted it brown, the paint had faded and cracked. The original yellow showed through.
The air around us began to spark again. We still weren’t doing or saying anything, but that was the whole point. The quiet was so strange, and it said everything for us.
Finally, after about two minutes of complete silence, I looked at him. He was watching me. I stared back at him. Something would have to give. I wondered why I didn’t give. He sat in the passenger side of my car rather than the drivers seat, but he’d have his license in November.
A nd he might not be as tall as Drew, but he was taller than me by quite a bit, and who knew how tall he’d be in a few months?
A nd he was very good-looking, with the expressive green eyes that always told on him. Now they were telling me that he had my number.
He knew I’d tried to lead him on. He was mad about it. A nd he wasn’t leaving this car until he got some. But he was going to make me wait.
I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel and wished I had my drumsticks. Better to meet the problem head-on, right? Still tapping, I said,
“A t the party. On the porch. You knew what I wanted.”
“Yes.”
“A nd you wouldn’t give it to me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t choose to help the cause.”
“Fair enough,” I said. Suddenly I stopped tapping and pounded both hands on the steering wheel. “I can’t believe you’re playing hard to get!”
“Me neither.” He crossed his legs. “I’m afraid you’re going to take advantage of me.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you would take advantage of me first!” Time to bring out the heavy artillery. I used the line boys used on TV when they were trying to get a girl to have sex with them. “You would if you loved me.”
Of course I was kidding. But if I’d thought about it for two seconds, I could have predicted what Walter would say to that.
“I do love you.”
The air between us sparked until Ï almost thought I could hear the tiny explosions.
“But I’m still not going to kiss you in front of Drew Morrow just so you can make him jealous,” he said. “Or kiss you now because you’re horny for Drew.”
“Really?” I asked. “Then why are you still in the car?”
“Good point.”
Walter would argue with me all night. Oh, what the hell. I leaned over and kissed him.
A t first I thought he was stunned, and then I thought he was being a butt, because he wouldn’t kiss me back. He didn’t move. Tickling my face with his beard, I moved to the corner of his mouth to see if that worked any better.
Then he wrapped his arms around me, pulled me closer across the seat, and gave me this warm, deep kiss.
Walter was a great kisser. Not that I had a whole lot to go on. The last time I’d kissed a boy was at the movies in eighth grade. The wonders of PG-13 had gotten everyone excited, and I couldn’t quite manage to get away from Bobby Thompson. A fter that, nothing for three years.
The nose stud scared them off.
But even I could tell that Walter was doing this right. There wasn’t enough tongue to be gross, but just enough to wake me up. I mean, this boy was waking me up. It occurred to me that Drew wasn’t the only playboy in the band. Walter had spent part of last year working his way along the clarinet line. It was paying off. For me.
This did not feel right. But it felt good.
I was giving Walter what he wanted. If his crush on me was anything like my crush on Drew, he’d probably dreamed for the past two years about kissing me. I was making my friend happy.
There was no way I could pull out now. Walter would hate me forever.
I could do this. I could do this for me and for Walter. I could pretend Walter was Drew.
His hand slid down my arm, and he interlaced his fingers with mine. His thumb rubbed my thumb.
I jerked away from him and backed across the seat, into the door.
He stared at me dumbly for a moment. “I knew it,” he muttered. Then he shouted at me, “I knew it! This is why I went away to school!”
“No, it isn’t,” I said, trying to slow down my panting. “You went away to scho
ol because you’re a good musician and an incredible writer, and you wanted to get a better education. A nd running water.”
He looked at the bus. “I’d drop out and come back in a heartbeat to be with you.”
“I know. That’s why it’s called a crush. It weighs you down and keeps you from doing what you really want to do.”
“What I really want to do is be with you.”
Before I could stop him, he got out, closed the door, and walked toward the bus.
I was going to let him go. A nything else I did would just mess it up worse. But I finally opened my door and leaned out. “Walter,” I called. “I don’t want to leave it like this. I want us to stay friends.”
He whirled around at the steps to the bus. “It s not all about you, Virginia. A nd sometimes you don’t get what you want.” He mounted the steps and slammed the door behind him. Which was difficult, because it was a folding door with a lever.
I waited for him to light a candle or a lantern in the bus. I watched from my car for a long time, but the bus stayed dark.
When I got home that night, Dad was at the hospital delivering a baby. It was Mom who was waiting for me, dozing on the couch with the Weather Channel on. I wondered why my parents had taken to watching the Weather Channel all of a sudden, like they were expecting a storm.
Mom was still in full makeup and looked like a magazine layout for expensive pjs, lying there in her negligee. Now, I don’t mean to give the impression that my mother never got dressed. She didn’t lie around in her negligee all day. Well, I guess she did, about two years ago. But she was depressed then, and it only lasted a week.
I lay down on the couch with my back to her front.
She stirred, pulled part of her silk robe over me, and kissed my hair. “You did so well today.”
“Thanks.”
“The band was night and day compared to two weeks ago. You’ve done a wonderful job with them. You and Drew. I’m so proud of you.”
I tried not to shiver under her robe. “Thanks.”
“A nd didn’t A llison look glamorous in the parade?”
I looked down at Mom’s hand resting beside mine. My fingernails were unpolished and cut down to the quick. Hers were long and red and freshly, professionally manicured.
“You know A llison has a big pageant tomorrow,” I said.
“I know.”
“Would you like to go?”
“Of course. I might go.”
“I mean, would you like for you and me to go with A llison and her mom?” Before she got the wrong impression, I hurried on, “I don’t think I’ll ever do pageants again myself. I’ve had enough. But I want to support A llison. I feel bad that I haven’t gone with her in the past two years. A nd the one tomorrow is so important.”
“I think that would be fun,” Mom said.
I fell asleep lying on the couch with her, wrapped in her silk, just like I used to.
A nd that’s how I came to be riding back from Gadsden late Saturday evening with Mom, A llison’s mom, A llison, and a pageant trophy the size of a refrigerator. It took up the whole payload section of the SUV and extended above the back seat, with the pageant girl on top poking between Mom and A llison’s mom in the front.
When A llison’s mom pulled into her driveway, I realized I didn’t want the day to end. A llison had almost convinced me that Walter would get over our fight. It made me feel good to be around A llison, and I’d missed spending whole pageant days with her.
I glanced over at her. She looked so pretty. A nd very funny in a T-shirt, torn jeans, high heels, pageant makeup, pageant hair, and tiara.
We couldn’t extract the tiara without washing her hair and starting all over again. She’d pulled out the majorette tiara before she went to Barry’s party the night before, but that was majorette hair. Pageant hair was another animal. This was some high hair. You teased it and sprayed it until it was mostly air, with a shell of hair around it. The tiara was secured so tightly with pins and hairspray that it was practically glued in place.
Someone else should share this joke. It was a shame that no one from school ever saw her this way.
The pageant trophy was worth showing off too.
I had an idea. I never thought A llison would go along with it. A nd it wasn’t long until our midnight curfew. But we dropped off our moms, borrowed A llison’s mom’s SUV still loaded with the trophy, and headed for Burger Bob’s.
I’d had fun at the pageant. I was glad we’d all gone together, just like old times. But after twelve hours, man, what a relief to be rid of the moms! I rolled down my window—A llison couldn’t roll hers down because the wind would destroy the hair helmet—and we cranked up the stereo. I pulled off the shoes my mom had made me wear inside the pageant showrooms. We sang along at the top of our lungs to songs on the radio.
A fter a few minutes A llison turned the volume down. “Serious convo for a minute.”
Uh-oh, she was pulling at her earring. That meant it was really serious.
“No!” I turned the volume back up.
“Just for a minute.” She turned the volume down. “I know you still care how you look. You haven’t been wearing makeup, but you’ve been plucking your eyebrows, and I’ve seen the Proactiv in your bathroom. You go barefoot, but you’re taking really good care of your toenails.
A nd you’re still using a pumice stone on that weird-looking place on your big toe.”
I stuck out my tongue at her.
She went on, “When you stopped going to pageants, it was so sudden. A nd remember how hard we worked on your baton routine, and how happy we were when you made majorette? Overnight, you decided you didn’t want to be a majorette anymore. It hurt my feelings. You know it hurt my feelings. You never hurt my feelings on purpose. Something happened to you.”
I turned the radio volume back up.
She turned it back down. “Will you tell me someday?”
I said somberly, “Yes, I’ll tell you someday.”
She turned the radio up. I turned it back down. “By the way,” I said, “while we’re having serious convo. I’m glad you’re going to Burger Bob’s with me. I wish you would do stuff like this more often. I wish you wouldn’t go around with your head in the clouds all the time.”
“It’s safer up here.”
“I know. But A llison, you were really unhappy last night. I’ve never seen such an unhappy homecoming queen.”
She pulled at her earring.
“I’m not saying you should come down to earth. If you’re on cloud nine, I’m suggesting that you come down to cloud six, six and a half.”
“Maybe,” she said as she turned the SUV in at Burger Bob’s.
She pulled into the front parking space, nearest the road. This was the unofficial place where boys parked in the winter, during hunting season, and showed off the huge deer they’d killed in the woods that day.
She opened the hatchback, and both of us struggled to slide out the huge trophy and set it on the pavement. We sat on either side of the bumper.
Immediately people cruising from Burger Bob’s to the movie theater and back honked their horns at us. A llison gave them her special pageant wave. A nd then someone hollered, “Hey, it’s JonBenét!”
“Oh no,” I said. I watched Luther’s car turn off the street and into the Burger Bob’s parking lot.
A llison laughed. “What do you mean, Oh no’?”
I looked at A llison like she was crazy. “Drew’s here!”
“You knew you might see him tonight. That’s the only reason I agreed to come here with you.”
Before I could think of a comeback, Luther pulled his car into the parking space next to us. Luther, Barry, and Craig Coley piled out of the car, crowded around us, and gave the trophy an “ooooooh, aaaaaah.” Drew hung behind them, watching me.
“That’s a big un,” Luther told A llison in a dead-on redneck accent, which was hilarious coming out of this A frican-A merican guy.
“Reckon it i
s,” A llison responded in a dead-on redneck accent of her own.
I turned to stare at her in amazement and new admiration.
“What’d you use to bag him?” Luther asked. “A twelve-gauge or a thirty-aught-six?”
“My feminine wiles,” she said, batting her eyelashes. “A nd a thirty-aught-six.”
He stepped closer to her. “I’ve been in class with you for eleven years, and I had no idea you had a sense of humor.”
“Maybe I just don’t laugh at your jokes. A nd maybe you’re not as funny as you think.” But she smiled at him. Not the pasted-on pageant smile, either. A genuine smile.
You go, girl. She was giving him the time of day. A nd he was giving it right back.
I boasted to the boys, “Today A llison was crowned Miss East-Central A labama 2006.”
The boys looked at me blankly.
“Now she gets to compete in the Miss State of A labama pageant,” I explained. “It’s like shooting a fourteen-point buck.”
“Oh,” the boys said, nodding.
Barry and Craig tried to talk to me, but I babbled on. I was completely distracted. I was listening to the rest of A llison and Luther’s conversation with one ear. Luther was saying something about knowing a good taxidermist. A nd I had one eye on Drew, who still shadowed Barry and Craig.
Suddenly, when I was in midsentence answering Barry’s question about the food at his party, Drew reached between Barry and Craig, grabbed my wrist like he had that Friday night in the bathroom, and pulled me off the bumper.
I would have stopped him and jerked away, but it happened so fast. He opened the back door of Luther’s car, shoved me in, scooted in next to me, and closed the door behind him.
It was that familiar feeling. I was in the center of bustle, the traffic around Burger Bob’s, but I was sealed off from the world. With Drew. I sat against the far door. He took up the rest of the seat, leaning so close to me that my skin tingled.
His low voice vibrated through me. “I’m sorry about that JonBenét comment. It wasn’t me. It was Barry. He’s still really interested in you.”
I studied Drew, wondering what to make of this. Was Drew telling me Barry liked me because Drew didn’t care? Or was Drew telling me because he did care, and he wanted to see my reaction? If this had been the eighth grade, I would have thrilled at playing mind games with a cute boy.